


Quitter's Flu

by cbstrike



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M, Flirting, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mixed Signals, Romance, Unresolved Romantic Tension, crossed wires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:53:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27951086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cbstrike/pseuds/cbstrike
Summary: Cormoran quits smoking. It goes about as well as you think.
Relationships: Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike
Comments: 12
Kudos: 75
Collections: Denmark Street Discord Sekrit Santa 2020





	Quitter's Flu

**Author's Note:**

  * For [libraryv](https://archiveofourown.org/users/libraryv/gifts).



> Gifted to libraryv whose awesome prompt was:
> 
> _Cormoran quits smoking (successful or not, both work) but Robin has to help him through cravings (take this where you want, grumpy or funny or sweet or sexy or meaningful, whatever direction!)_

Cormoran walked past Robin who was reading case notes on the farty couch in the outer office. He headed straight for Pat’s desk, gathering a pile of loose papers he knew he needed to get through.

“Any messages?” he grumbled, his throat torturously itchy from the vibration.

“Just Mr. Karlov.” rasped Pat, typing on the computer. “It’s on your table.”

The secretary stopped her typing, peering into the plastic bag of groceries Cormoran was carrying with him.

“They’re not gonna help you shit any better.” she said matter-of-factly, resuming her typing.

“Oh yeah?” Cormoran asked, immediately riled up. “How about you mind your own effing business?”

“Jesus, Cormoran!” sniped Robin from behind him, sounding incensed at his plain rudeness.

He ignored her, heading for the inner office, his head throbbing like a mother fucker, sweating now through his button-down despite the winter chill and the draft in his office.

He dumped the paperwork all over the partner’s table, even over Robin’s far neater side. He caused her pencil holder to spill, not caring about the assortment of tacks now littering the tabletop.

The inner door banged loudly, triggering his dizziness. His temple throbbing even worse when Robin started yelling at him.

“You can’t treat your employees like that, Strike!” she yelled, loud enough that Pat will surely hear.

“Oh yeah?” Cormoran challenged, irritated at Pat. Irritated at Robin. Irritated at Shanker who handed him his first-ever cigarette. “Are you gonna yell at her too for poking her nose in other people’s shopping?”

“What’s the matter with you?” she was looking at him with utter disgust on her face. He just wanted her to leave him the fuck alone.

The sniping and yelling had been on and off the last workweek but the rest of their employees just took it in stride, except new girl Michelle who looked fretfully at the inner office door, hearing Cormoran’s loud but muffled yelling.

“Is it always like this here?” she asked softly to Sam who was standing in front of Pat’s desk, waiting for his cheque. He picked up a bulldog bobblehead, Pat slapped his wrist. He hissed, but withdrew.

“Na,” Sam insisted. “Usually thick as thieves, those two. Alway' huddlit in corners, whisperin, smilin at each other… Dinnae think Rob’s caught on that Corm’s quit smokin’ yet.”

“Oh dear.” said Michelle sympathetically who also knew what it was like to quit smoking.

“Poor bastard.” Pat chimed in, e-cig still hanging on the side of her mouth, with a hint of sympathy for what the boss was going through.

“Whit aboot ye, Pat?” Sam asked. “Any plans on quitting?”

“No.” the secretary rasped plainly. “I’ll die smoking and die proud.”

Sam chuckled. He turned to Andy who was quietly looking over the papers Robin left on the coffee table. “Andy! Ye iver smoked?”

But before Andy could answer, they heard loud noises from inside the inner office as though things might’ve been flung about. Sam hopped off Pat's table, Michelle already bursting into the inner office.

Cormoran’s headache and dizziness had risen to such a crescendo, he backed from where he had been yelling face to face with Robin, intending to aim at the bin afraid the nausea was starting to set in. But he had tripped over his groceries of junk food and bread, large arms windmilling comically, accidentally elbowing the desktop computer which made a godawful racket.

He slammed his arm on the tabletop to keep from completely falling on his back, forgetting he’d spilled tacks all over the desk.

He grunted, angry and humiliated, arse cheek smarting from the impact against the floor, his left arm for sure now riddled with thumbtacks that had embedded into his skin. Every shift he made, the echo of crinkling crisps followed. He had landed on top of his shopping.

The entire agency was crammed inside the office now, witness to this utterly embarrassing display. This only made him even angrier, the word ‘out’ rumbling like a growing tsunami from the bottom of his throat.

Robin, who was closest and already half-reaching out to help him like an old man who slipped and broke his hip, had recoiled when he shouted. He pulled his arm sharply away when she touched his wrist but she only glared at him and tugged again anyway.

Sam was also undeterred, kneeling with Robin now to take Cormoran’s other arm. “Up ye gae, big man.”

Cormoran, in his humiliation, only had room for one other emotion and anger seemed more macho than embarrassment. Every part of him ached so terribly, the thumbtacks lining his arm like he was a corkboard barely felt like anything.

Sam had righted the desktop computer before walking out wordlessly and closing the door behind him. He was left with Robin again, whose scowl was so fierce, Cormoran wondered if her face could freeze like that.

He wished she would leave him alone, but she only headed for the shelf to fetch the first aid kit.

So many emotions were competing for domination inside Robin just then. Firstly, there was horror and disgust from the neat line of thumbtacks that looked like little gold decors down Cormoran’s forearm. 

Secondly, there was fury. Cormoran has been so unpleasant the last workweek and generally impossible to work with that she was seriously contemplating just doing office work from home.

Thirdly, and most frustratingly, there was tenderness. Because she hasn’t gotten a good look at him all week, and touching his wrist she immediately could tell that he was boiling.

But millions of people get sick without turning into absolute cunts.

“Why did you go down to the office if you’re so ill?” she asked, still snappish, still glaring. He had subjected their employees to his utterly deplorable attitude all week for no reason. Just because he’s sick doesn’t mean he can be let off that easily. He could’ve stayed upstairs and saved the entire agency the grief.

He didn’t speak, but he stopped resisting when she put his arm down the table intending now to yank the tacks off his skin. They were brand new, but he should probably still get a tetanus shot.

Her mouth was twitching with disgust as she took the tweezers and used it to remove the tacks. Cormoran still looked like shit, still looked mad, though not looking at her. Just glaring at his arm.

He hissed when she pulled one out. And even his impatience manifested in this. Yanking the tweezer off her hand, he started pulled the others in quick succession. She stepped back from him, chucking the betadine and gauze against his chest, storming out of the office.

Robin invited her co-workers for a drink at the Tottenham, insisting to pay for everyone’s first round as covert reparation for her partner’s inexcusably boorish behavior. Their employees all worked hard, all were excellent at their jobs. They did not deserve Cormoran's relentless grumpiness.

When she and Andy came back from getting everyone’s drinks, Pat was telling Sam and Michelle about the only time she tried to quit smoking.

“Ballooned to fourteen stone!” she said earnestly, sucking on her e-cig. “Inhaled hobnobs like a hoover! He’s gonna earn back all that weight he’s lost, mark my words. Plus extra.”

“What are we talking about?” Robin asked pleasantly.

“Corm’s quit smokin’, Rob. Thon’s why he’s been a goddamn cunt all week.” said Sam, sipping his proffered pint.

Robin looked taken aback, but bit back asking for clarification. She instantly felt embarrassed that she didn’t catch on. She was supposed to be a detective. And their boss. And the main person in Cormoran’s life, really. (Well, in London, at least.) But she had been swamped with a knotty case, and he had been off-putting all week that she didn’t realise he hasn’t smoked a single cigarette.

“It’s a right bitch, quittin’.” said Barclay soberly, shaking his head. “The missus an I tried whan we haed Chrissie. Fell right aff the wagon, me."

“No point, I say.” said Pat who was downing her pint faster than everyone else. “Life’s short either way. Could get hit by a bus on my way home, couldn’t I? Not worth the sweats, and dizziness, and being plugged up the shitter. If it’s my time, it’s my time.”

“Why did ye switch tae e-cigs, then?” Barclay asked Pat.

“So I can smoke for longer!”

Everyone laughed, but Robin was now thinking of Cormoran. Sweating, dizzy, probably experiencing cravings, definitely feverish, possibly also—as Pat so charmingly put it—plugged up the shitter.

Not even when he’d been poisoned by a mad murderer last year did he feel this bad. He was dully glad he never considered quitting when he had still been in possession of an issued firearm because he thought he might’ve blown his head clean off by now.

Why the bloody fuck did he decide to quit?

He knew why, of course. Forty now. Alone. If he didn’t make changes, he’ll end up being his sister Lucy--and then later one of her son's--problem. And he didn’t want Jack to be responsible for him when he inevitably causes himself serious illness.

Of course there was also another reason, one that aches when he thinks of it too hard: the mild supposition that chain smoker might not be Robin’s type. Well, seeing as he’d just humiliated himself and have been a right cunt to everyone they work with, chain smoker might be the least unattractive quality about him.

He’s ruined his shopping, so he didn’t even have food at his flat. He also didn’t have cigarettes, which was the only reason he hasn’t broken his five-day streak. Although he craved nicotine now like a crazed and deprived heroin addict, wondering if one could die from the shock of being cut off.

He ought to have done it gradually. Ought to have consulted a GP or Nick at least. But he had been enamoured by the last time he smoked, relishing the romantic notion of going back to that memory and definitively saying that it was when he finally decided to make this change.

_Cormoran looked down at his guests, milling about Nick and Ilsa’s backyard in formal suits and dresses, which is not at all his style. It was part of the gag, Nick explained, for everyone to dress as though they were at a cigar bar._

_It was a surprise party. Ilsa’s idea. And he had been mortified, but then when the shock had settled he realised there were only twenty or so people there. All of which he knew, most of which he liked. (There were collateral guests that couldn’t be avoided, like Helly Anstis. And Greg.) Lucy looked disapproving early in the evening as Ilsa apparently gave a strict ‘no children’ policy with the invites. But after a few fingers of whiskey, she looked finally as though she was enjoying herself._

_“Why are you out here by yourself like a weirdo?”_

_Robin had joined him in the balcony, the only woman not in dress but a smoking jacket like the men, her hair slick and straight down her back. Most of Cormoran's thoughts that night involved thinking how this is the sexiest he's ever seen her._

_She handed him yet another glass of whiskey._

_“Cheers.” he clinked their glasses together and she smiled at him._

_“You know, I’m disappointed with you.” he started._

_“What have I done now?” she gaped with mock incredulity._

_“Thought my best mate would know me well enough to know I’d hate all this.”_

_She laughed. “I did, actually. But party was non-negotiable. I’ll have you know that without my input, we’d be at a bright restaurant having brunch with about a hundred people.”_

_“Christ.” Cormoran muttered. He did think the intimacy, and even the theme of this party was inordinately thoughtful of his interests._

_“C’mon,” Robin urged, playfully nudging him by the shoulder. “You’re having fun, admit it.”_

_He was having fun. He’s been smoking expensive cigars all night, been eating ribs, been downing whiskeys, been stealing glances at Robin who was irresistible in high-waisted trousers, fat cigars in her mouth…_

_He looked at her leaning over the balcony next to him, cheeks red from yet another perfectly good cigar she’s definitely not inhaling._

_Heady with whiskey, smelling Narciso and fragrant smoke, he found her sexy and cute, mind swirling down the gutter when she hollowed her cheeks to pull at her cigar. She inhaled too much and started to cough._

_He chuckled, patting her on the back through it. "Gimme that," he took the cigar from her hand and almost unthinkingly putting it to his own mouth. The head was wet with her saliva, of course, and perversely, his prick registered this fact first before his brain. He shifted his gait a little, trying to think of other, less erotic things._

_But he looked at her again and he was surprised to see that she looked sad._

_"What's wrong?"_

_"That song..." she said, looking out at the party with all its dull chatter and laughter. It was soft and slow and he was surprised she heard it at all. He was surprised when he felt her hand hook in the wedge of his elbow, her cheek leaning against his shoulder as she sighed._

_It was a dizzying song, as though the singer was purposely singing it slightly off-tempo just when you thought you could predict how it sounds. It was more grating to Cormoran's ears than sad. But he caught the words of the woman's song,_ 'and if you care, don't let them know, don't give yourself away...'

_He gulped. "You don't like it?" he asked, acutely so aware of Robin's cheek against his arm, of his own urge to whisper as though this conversation was only for the both of them._

_"It reminds me of Margot."_

_It took him a while to realise who she meant, and inexplicably, he thought she understood why somehow._ 'tears and fears and feeling proud' _sang the woman,_ 'to say 'I love you' right out loud...'

_Cormoran stared at his cigar slowly burning itself away ignored and he put it out against a concrete pot just within reach thinking that had been it. The very last time. The end of an era. Of a version of him that--Charlotte crossed his mind, thinking how much he had been shaped by that relationship, and then how this version of him now has also been shaped by his relationship with..._

_He felt Robin shift from next to him, saw from the corner of her eye how her strawberry blonde hair turned to face his way, felt how she seemed to have pressed her face or her lips against his coated shoulder and he felt a soft thrill, an elation akin to having been kissed on the lips._

_Cormoran turned his own head towards hers, feeling again like a trapeze artist at the very edge of a platform, his heart thudding. He buried his face against Robin's hair, breathing her in, lips forming to press against her head. An unmistakable kiss. He could've said 'I love you'. Because it was true. Because it was the truest thing he knew at that moment. But he didn't. Not yet. But with knowledge that he will one day tell Robin those words, he instead murmured into her hair, "Thank you, Robin."_

_She pulled away to smile up at him, their faces so close together, they could've kissed. The song kept on._ 'Something's lost, but something's gained' _it said,_ 'in living every day...'

Robin knocked on Cormoran’s door, feeling a little idiotic why she was there at all with a bag of groceries when he’d been so awful all week. But they were best mates. She would do this if it were Max or Vanessa and they were living alone, even if they pissed her off in some way (not that they ever had).

“It’s me!” she called out, and she thought her voice sounded singsong-y and sweet. She didn’t mean that! She wanted to make it plain and clear to him that she thought his behavior had been abhorrent.

Dead silence. As though the flat was empty. Maybe it was. Maybe he went to casualty to get his tackholes checked. Robin scoffed. Of course he wouldn’t. Men don’t voluntarily go to A&E unless it’s life or death, and even then…

Maybe he went out to score—she grinned involuntarily, imagining Cormoran twitchy and covert trying to score cigarettes like he would a heroin deal.

“I’m coming in, alright?” she called out again, taking out her copy of his keys with the office set.

“Cormoran?” she called out, craning her neck around. The bedroom door was closed so she walked up there, hoping he was decent.

He was curled in the middle of his double bed, face crumpled as though he wasn’t having a particularly good sleep. But he was asleep.

 _Poor thing,_ she thought, thinking it might not be very feminist of her to want to take care of a huge man who just treated her poorly. But she was just hard-wired to care. And more than some inculcated social or biological instinct to tend to somebody ill, there is also, inside of her, this feeling of want-to. She, Robin, wanted to take care of him, Cormoran. Because they’re friends—

 _When will you stop kidding yourself?_ said a snarky demon on her shoulder. _That thing during his birthday. That wasn't very friendly!_

She ignored her tricky intrusive thoughts, sitting at the edge of his bed almost with some kind of determination to convince herself this was all platonic.

She pressed her soft palm to his forehead. Fever. She also noticed that he was still fully dressed. Can’t be comfortable. She saw that his arm were riddled with reddened pinpricks. Untreated because of course they would be. She shook her head. "What am I going to do with you?" she said quietly at him, finding his stubbornness so impossible. And then sighing, resignedly thinking that she was done for, really.

She grabbed the duvet that he might've pulled off before slumping on his mattress, and draped it over his sleeping form before walking out to make him soup.

Cormoran woke up with a groan, feeling competing ill feelings inside of his stomach. He was hungry but also nauseous. He needed to shit but probably won’t be successful. He was also drenched from his own sweat but somehow chilled by the winter draft inside his room and despite the duvet he doesn't remember putting over himself.

He laboriously pulled himself off of his bed, stripping down to his boxers and undershirt, intending to raid the office’s stockpile of snacks and maybe Pat's leftovers to tide him over for the night, knowing for sure if he ventured any further he will only succeed in buying cigarettes and perhaps smoking the entire pack in one go.

A sudden intake of breath. He was genuinely surprised to see Robin standing behind his bedroom door with a tray of soup in her hands.

“Jesus!” he said. “You startled me.”

She averted her eyes, expression still haughty, and Cormoran remembered he was now down to only undershirt and boxers. She handed the tray to him, but he walked further out his bedroom with her, walking back to his small dining and kitchen.

“Thanks for this.” he said, feeling awkward but of course genuinely touched. “And for the groceries.” he added, spotting the other things on his table. _Christ_ , he uttered seeing a box of bran cereal on.

“Right.” said Robin, by the door. “Text me if you’ll be coming down the office tomorrow.”

“I’ll—”

“Actually,” she added. “If you’re just going to be in a bad mood, could you just stay here? I’ll come back up if you need me to discuss work or something. So you don’t take it out on Pat and everyone else.”

“Christ.” said Cormoran, feeling now ashamed of himself. “Sorry. Robin, I’m sorry, I’ve quit smoking and it hasn’t been going well.”

Despite herself, she gave him a small smile. “I think experiencing withdrawal symptoms actually means it’s going well.”

He sighed. “I feel like shit. Hard to take the glass half full approach when I feel worse than that time Janice Beattie poisoned me.”

It was hard to stay mad at someone she liked a lot. So she approached him at the table and he pushed the bowl of soup she made towards her and headed to the hob to ladle himself another serving.

“Oh, I can—” she offered.

“No, you sit.” he insisted. Once he got himself a serving, he joined her at the table. He shoveled the hot soup into his mouth with relish, making smacking sounds that she couldn't help but giggle.

“Sorry,” he apologised, and Robin saw him actually blush. “Been cold and hungry.”

She stood to reach out for his coat that was on the coat rack and draped it over his shoulders.

“Thanks.” he said.

“No problem.”

They sat in silence for awhile, having their soup. And Robin, taken in now by this... _thing_ that was happening, put her palm over his forehead again.

Cormoran closed his eyes to her touch.

“Your fever's broken.” she said, hearing that she sounded mildly breathless.

“That’s one symptom down.” he smiled ruefully. “About a dozen more to go.”

“Yes,” Robin agreed. “Pat said constipation is a big one.”

“Jesus.” he shook his head though smiling.

“Did you plan at all?” Robin asked, knowing the answer would be ‘no’. “Prepare?”

Cormoran snorted. “Do I look like I had a plan?” then shrugged. “Dunno. Thought I’d just quit cold turkey and see where that gets me.”

“And where's that getting you?”

“Honestly,” he started. “You might as well be a giant cigarette to me right now.”

“What,” she smiled shrewdly. “You want to smoke me?”

He laughed. “You passed by some smokers on the way here.” he said.

“I dunno if I did.”

“No, I could tell. I could smell it on you.”

She giggled. “You're like a vampire craving for blood.”

“Junkie, more like. Needing a fix.”

“Isn’t there therapy or something? To help?” Robin suggested.

“I’m sure there are.”

“Too macho to go to therapy, are you?”

“You of all people know my schedule, where would I have time for therapy?”

“We could make it work, if that’s what you need.”

“No.” he said clearly. “I have it under control.”

She gave him a look. He laughed. “Okay, maybe not. But I might be through the worst of it. It’s been a week since my last. All that’s left is…” he trailed off thinking. And then it dawned on him. “The rest of my life. Christ!”

“Is that the big thing, then?” Robin asked. “The big thing you’re doing because you’ve turned 40?”

“You could say that.” he agreed. “You didn’t have one when you turned 30?”

Robin smiled, chin on her palm just watching him eat his soup. “No, I did.”

“Oh?” Cormoran asked, curious. “What was it?”

She looked away from him, taking another spoonful of soup before answering. “Promised myself I’d start dating again.”

Cormoran felt a weight so heavy dropping in the pit of his stomach, he could have shat. 

This revelation hung between them for a long awkward stretch, only the sounds of slowly sipped soup breaking the dead silence. Robin felt anxious. Cormoran only felt unhappy, picturing his route to the nearest shop that would sell him his Benson & Hedges.

“So,” he started, uncertain. He could think of a million other things he wanted to know less than details of Robin’s lovelife, but he thought it pertinent for his own plans that he knew. “Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Seeing someone?”

Robin laughed, then shook her head. “No.” she admitted. “Haven’t gotten that far yet.”

“Oh.” he hoped the sigh of relief he just breathed out sounded like amusement. “Why not?”

“You of all people know my schedule, when would I have time for a date?” she repeated him.

Unlike Robin, Cormoran didn't offer flexibility to allow her more sociable hours.

When Cormoran didn't say anything, Robin continued. "What about you?"

“What about me what?” Cormoran replied.

“Seeing anyone?” she didn’t quite look at him when she said it, suddenly finding her soup fascinating.

He couldn't suppress a smile at her asking. He could've ripped a joke. Could've teased, 'Who's asking?' but instead he only shook his head. "No."

The caught each other’s eye at that, remembering The Ritz. Cormoran's birthday. The many little ways they've changed towards each other in the last few weeks. Separately thinking the same thing: how easy it would be. How close they were. Robin thought how easy it would be to just hold his hand. It was right there, on the table.

But then Cormoran moved it, finger rubbing his bottom lip, once again being pulled by the insatiable desire to smoke. 

He was already putting her through this, he thought, this cantankerous, pained, desperate version of him that's delirious with craving a smoke half the time. He isn't ready. He wished he was. _Just a little longer_ , he thought at her as though hoping she could read his thoughts. _Wait for me just a little longer_.

He broke their eye contact, rummaging through the shopping, finding only vegetables, mixed nuts and a pack of gum. He popped one in, trying not to think how well he'd bear up when Robin inevitably leaves tonight.

He ran his large hand through his hair and something in his expression made Robin say, “Maybe if you remember your ‘why’.”

Cormoran knotted his eyebrows at her.

“You know, why you quit.” Robin continued,

“Just supposed to, aren’t I? Forty now.”

“Hm.” she said thoughtfully. “Maybe that’s why you’re having a hard time. You think you’re supposed to. Maybe you need a more personal reason.”

“Yeah, yeah.” he said, growing frustrated. Now that their moment had passed, his brain was now back to half-wishing he was smoking all the world's cigarettes in one go. “I have those.”

“Do you want to tell me?” she asked.

He busied himself digging through the groceries as though to survey its contents in search for something too salty or too sweet but definitely comforting. “Lung disease is an awful way to go, innit?” he said half into the paper bag. And then he pulled his head away from perusing the bags, sighing as he slumped back to his seat, image of Joan in her last moments materalising unbidden in his mind's eye. “Cancer’s a bad way to go, Robin.” he said. And then feeling acutely vulnerable, he added, “Might be worse alone.”

Robin didn't miss a beat. Replying instantly, quizzically, “Who’s alone?”

He looked at her then, taken aback by her reply. And he couldn’t the grin that formed on his face. Feeling reassured—elated, even—at what she had implied by those two simple words, by the slight wink she had just given him as she, too, smiled.

“Yeah, well.” he pressed on. “No kids for me so it’ll have to be Lucy’s boys. Adam will chuck me in a home and Luke will surely put a pillow over my face.”

Robin laughed. “Jack will take care of you.”

“That’s worse!” Cormoran insisted. “I would prefer the pillow!”

“That’s a good ‘why’.” Robin pointed out.

“I have to quit smoking so my arsehole nephew doesn’t murder me in my sleep.” he stated. And then, daringly added, “Plus I’m no good to you, curmudgeonly and sick.” In his own Cormoranly way, he had just told her, _I want to grow old with you_.

“No,” she agreed, a making a creditable job of appearing as though that didn't just take her aback. "I'll go bankrupt taking the agency out for apology drinks.” She understood full well what she had just been told and felt so warmed at the thought of it, the image it conjured in her mind. How lovely, to grow old with your best friend. With the man she now strongly suspected might in fact be the love of her life.

He walked her the two steps to his front door. And before she left she hugged him. Arms around his neck, his around her waist and he thought of how much he loved that they were now this sort of friends. Huggy.

“You can do it, Cormoran.” she said by his ear. She pulled away, looking up at him. “I believe in you.”

And he smiled, cupping her face in his hands. Surprised that he had done it. Surprised that she had allowed him. He seared her face in his memory, imprinting it in his mind's eye. It would be her words and her face he’d come back to in twelve hours when he goes out for breakfast and walks by a stall full of Benson & Hedges.

He would also return to this moment in three weeks, sated from their first night together and craving an after-sex cigarette. In the new year when a client offers him a fag. Four months from now when they visit Masham and he’s surrounded by Martin’s constant smoking. In eight months after their first huge fight. A year from this moment, waking up after having nearly died. In two years when a fire would raze his agency. During his own stag night when he's passed a cigar. The night Aggie was born. The day Whittaker was put away. Nick's accident. Luke's wedding. Ted's death.

The highs and lows of Cormoran's life would henceforth be punctuated with the desire to smoke, but he would never do so again because of this winter night when the love of his life was still only a friend, and told him with utter confidence that she believed in him.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this little Christmas present, Vee!
> 
> Also dedicated to the Discord group, which have been such fun to chat with. <3
> 
> Happy holidays!!
> 
> PS, hope you don't mind 'Both Sides Now' making a bit of a cameo in this, Fede!


End file.
